Remakes and Other Such Nonsense

jimmer · May 12, 2017

The casting of Belle was spot on perfect. In fact, when i heard there was going to be a live version, Emma Watson was the first person to come to mind for Belle. She nailed it and the movie was great.

Brock Beauchamp · May 12, 2017

The casting of Belle was spot on perfect. In fact, when i heard there was going to be a live version, Emma Watson was the first person to come to mind for Belle. She nailed it and the movie was great.

I would pay to watch Emma Watson read a book for two hours. I adore Emma Watson.

Mike Sixel · May 12, 2017

Reviews on GoG 2?

Brock Beauchamp · May 12, 2017

Reviews on GoG 2?

Not as good as the original but very good.

The first four minutes are worth the price of admission alone. It's so entirely perfect, everything about it. The title card might be worth $12 admission by itself.

jimmer · May 12, 2017

Not as good as the original but very good.

The first four minutes are worth the price of admission alone. It's so entirely perfect, everything about it. The title card might be worth $12 admission by itself.

The thing GoG1 had over GoG2 is that it was entirely new for a vast majority of fans. I had never heard of them so it was all new to me.

GoG2 got a little too mushy at the end, but I loved it.

Brock Beauchamp · May 12, 2017

The thing GoG1 had over GoG2 is that it was entirely new for a vast majority of fans. I had never heard of them so it was all new to me.

GoG2 got a little too mushy at the end, but I loved it.

Interesting. I thought the end was surprisingly touching. The middle is what bothered me; the movie just kinda wandered around for 30-40 minutes.

The first movie's plot allowed for the characters to shine. It was a game of football. "I have the orb, people are trying to take it from me. They have the orb, let's take it from them." That allowed the characters to be quirky and fun without bogging them down with plot exposition. The second film made the plot a bit more complex and it felt like the characters were trying too hard to get their quirky fun lines in.

ashbury · May 15, 2017

Reviews on GoG 2?

I saw it yesterday at an IMAX in 3-D, with buttkicker seats for the explosion effects. Probably the preferred way to see an over-the-top spectacle like this one.

I actually didn't like the first GoG, so I'm not a great one to review the new one. It's the sort of thing people will like, who like this sort of thing. I never really realized, before GoG, that I don't merely ignore comic books, I actually never enjoyed them. The Marvel movie franchise has been comic-book faithful, which limits their appeal to me.

But this movie in particular bugs me in two major ways. 1) It takes a hip ironic nothing-is-serious view of things when it wants to, but then slams on the brakes to demand you take it very very seriously when it decides it has something important to say about feelings or whatever. They clue you in how to react through manipulative music and so forth, in more of a paint-by-numbers way than I want. 2) There is no sense of scale: without divulging spoilers, they battle in a life-and-death way with a very mundane garden-variety space alien baddie, then later run into an opponent 100X more powerful and they come up with a way to deal with that without getting squished, and then later they encounter an opponent 100X more powerful than that (I'm understating these multipliers, we're talking planetary levels of force) and they find ways to battle that to a draw. Naturally, by the end of the movie, not all these new-found powers remain in effect, so that things are back to normal for the start of the next sequel.

By that point I'm not even overly bothered by an apparent rehash of Star Wars A New Hope's solution to the heroes' problem. The overtly Freudian approach to the interpersonal plot points didn't do a lot for me (one of the characters is named Ego, for criminy's sake), but that's what these movies do. The only character I found interesting and plausible was Nebula, who by no small coincidence is the one who burns hot rather than exhibit the lukewarmness that snark ultimately brings. Oh, and don't get me started on the "music of the era the movie's creators happened to grow up in will be revered either by future centuries or by nonhuman species" cliche.

I didn't hate the movie. The creativity just to think up the special effects sequences is astonishing, and the execution/choreography via computer is spectacular. Go see it, just for that.

I much much much preferred Deadpool, though. That one's snark and winking self-awareness was honest. It might be the comic for people who hate comics.

gunnarthor · May 15, 2017

They clue you in how to react through manipulative music and so forth, in more of a paint-by-numbers way than I want.

.

Actually, this is a pretty good complaint about how all the Marvel Studio movies are made. They are safe, fun and true popcorn movies. I read a pretty good article - maybe on cracked of all places - that explained how much better the DC movies were at pushing the envelope and just had better directors that brought you into the action. (But the movies themselves were still worse).

Anyhow, I liked the first one better than this but I thought the sequel was pretty good. I very much enjoyed their use of Mr. Blue Sky but I agree that they were forcing the music on you and it was a bit annoying - especially with "come a little bit closer". Still, my kids want to go see it again, which is probably why Marvel Studios is making all the money.

Brock Beauchamp · May 16, 2017

Personally, I was impressed with how hard Gunn has pushed the "families are built, not born" theme throughout the first two Guardians movies. The first film gently pushed the idea but the second film pushed hard in that direction with every character, though in quite different ways.

I think it was quite a feat to work every character into that theme, even though it made the film bog down a bit in the middle.

It's rare to see a trilogy push one theme in that manner, particularly a theme outside typical blockbuster fare. This is, of course, assuming that theme will continue in the third film.

There was a surprising amount of subtext in the film considering its comic book, popcorn movie overtures.

ashbury · May 16, 2017

I think it was quite a feat to work every character into that theme

It was hard to keep in mind, while mulling over nuances of the unripe-fruit subplot, and the forced and repeated hilarity over a character's name considering one of the heroes is sometimes called freakin' Star-Lord.

nicksaviking · May 16, 2017

It was hard to keep in mind, while mulling over nuances of the unripe-fruit subplot, and the forced and repeated hilarity over a character's name considering one of the heroes is sometimes called freakin' Star-Lord.

I never read the comics, but I actually enjoyed poking fun at that guy's name. Star-Lord and Ego are silly, but they are based on comic books, what do we to expect to be named? When they started making fun of Laserface (?Laser Face? ?Layzer Faise?) I knew instantly that this was surely an actual comic book character and the writers were basically telling the audience, "What do you want us to do, stay close to the source material or start making stuff up?!"

This is pretty much the entire conundrum with comic book movies, not just with names, but with plots, motives and ridiculous super powers. They boiled it down to one gag and basically told the people who don't like it to get over themselves because they are choosing the comic book fans instead. Of which I am not.

nicksaviking · May 16, 2017

Though I was particularly partial to the film because my seven-year-old wanted to go and I was thrilled to take him to something that wasn't a cartoon. I was a proud daddy when the biggest laugh in the whole theater came from my son when the characters made jokes about putting turds in each other's pillows.

His teacher at school this week will surely be less impressed.

TheLeviathan · May 16, 2017

It's rare to see a trilogy push one theme in that manner, particularly a theme outside typical blockbuster fare. This is, of course, assuming that theme will continue in the third film.

I don't know, Fast and Furious has done like 32 sequels with that theme, so does it still count as rare?

Mike Sixel · May 16, 2017

I don't know, Fast and Furious has done like 32 sequels with that theme, so does it still count as rare?

I keep thinking I should watch 1-2 of those....

TheLeviathan · May 16, 2017

I keep thinking I should watch 1-2 of those....

The series represents about 15% of the movies made by mankind, I'm surprised you haven't stumbled upon one by accident!

Brock Beauchamp · May 16, 2017

I don't know, Fast and Furious has done like 32 sequels with that theme, so does it still count as rare?

Hahah, fair enough. I've watched most of the FF movies and while I understand why people like them, they're not really my thing. They're pretty well done for what they are, just not my thing.

Brock Beauchamp · May 16, 2017

They boiled it down to one gag and basically told the people who don't like it to get over themselves because they are choosing the comic book fans instead. Of which I am not.

It's pretty hard to say they've chosen the comic fans when the movies regularly gross the domestic product of a small nation.

I actually attend comic cons, lots of them. The overwhelming majority of people at "comic cons" don't give a damn about comics but they love the characters in film and animation.

Because Rocket and Groot are fun. The more ridiculous they are, the more fun they become.

TheLeviathan · May 16, 2017

Hahah, fair enough. I've watched most of the FF movies and while I understand why people like them, they're not really my thing. They're pretty well done for what they are, just not my thing.

I agree, I really don't care for them, even if they are well done. But it was hard to ignore that Diesel is in this movie and a lot of the themes felt like Space Fast and Furious.

Still a damn fine movie though. It wasn't as good as the first one, but the first one was really, really good at what it was trying to be. Not many silly action movies can make you cry in the first five minutes and last five minutes and keep you laughing and enthralled the rest of the time. They took a bunch of no-names in the Marvel Universe and made them some of the most beloved in their cinematic universe.

No small feat. Especially when DC is simultaneously making you hate or shake your head at characters that are absolutely adored.

Mike Sixel · May 18, 2017

speaking of remakes.....the new Star Trek trailer (for the tv show) is up.

Of course, the super nerds are already complaining......

I have no idea how this show is going to be. Remember, TNG was pretty meh it's first year, it wasn't until they killed Tasha that things really took off, imo.

Brock Beauchamp · May 19, 2017

TNG was pretty meh it's first year, it wasn't until they killed Tasha that things really took off, imo.

Most Trek is pretty meh its first season. DS9 was meh in its first season, pretty bad in its second, and seasons 4-6 might be the best Trek ever put on television.

Voyager meandered around for the entire series but season one, again, wasn't great. Voyager gets a bit better later on but its lackluster cast held it back in those early seasons.

Mike Sixel · May 19, 2017

And the spoof on Star Trek looks more like Star Trek than Star Trek does...

jimmer · May 19, 2017

TNG is my favorite Star Trek series and by a decent margin.

TheLeviathan · May 19, 2017

TNG is my favorite Star Trek series and by a decent margin.

DS9 is underrated, but I agree.

gunnarthor · May 19, 2017

The Baywatch movie looks stupidly funny.

Brock Beauchamp · May 19, 2017

TNG is my favorite Star Trek series and by a decent margin.

As a series, absolutely.

If we break it down into seasons, DS9 had the best seasons (4-6, primarily 5-6). The Dominion War is the best Trek ever, IMO.

Willihammer · May 19, 2017

Voyager ftw

Brock Beauchamp · May 19, 2017

Voyager ftw

Janeway is awesome. The Doctor is awesome.

The rest of the cast should have been left on a desolate planet somewhere in the Gamma Quadrant.

Though Seven of Nine was a decent character later in the series.

TheLeviathan · May 20, 2017

Janeway is awesome. The Doctor is awesome.

The rest of the cast should have been left on a desolate planet somewhere in the Gamma Quadrant.

Though Seven of Nine was a decent character later in the series.

They also had limited compelling opposition. There best villains were basically ripped off from TNG and they were second rate ripoffs at that.

I agree with you, the height of the war with the Dominion was some really, really good stuff.

gunnarthor · May 25, 2017

There is only one reason to watch any Underworld movies, and if you can't see her, well.....

This is slightly off topic but funny. And the comments about Beckinsale are even funnier.

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/important-i-would-not-bone-a-vampire-1795551127

nicksaviking · May 26, 2017

So my soon-to-be 7-year-old saw a preview for a new Transformers movie and got excited. As an 80's kid I loved Transformers, and I'm thrilled my son is starting to transition to Marvel Movies and Star Wars so I can see something other than cartoons in the theater.

But ugh, Michael Bay.....So torn about this development.

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